Lunchtime read: Exile and The Kingdom

the reason for choosing this book as a lunchtime read is that the six short stories by Albert Camus are the perfect antitode to a cold London day. The first tale is set in Algeria and you can feel the sand brushing your cheeks and the sun burning your lips thanks to his quality of writing.

The Adulterous Woman* The story is based around two people – Marcel and Janine – a married couple that have got trapped in a rut as the husband becomes focused on his business trying to make money. The wife doesn’t want to come on the trip but Marcel insists and so you join them stuck on a bus going through a desert with the sand whipping at the windows and blinding out the landscape.

* In the course of an afternoon watching Marcel haggle with traders Janine is drained and they head back to the room and she wakes in the middle of the night realising that she does not love him and vice versa. She heads out into the night and runs through the darkness and then returns to the room and is discovered weeping by her husband.

A haunting short story that has a third character of the desert and shows that it is possible to commit adulery in the mind.